The invention relates to a vehicle safe traveling alarm device, and particularly, to a transducer and a signal control circuit for an emergency-deceleration condition, and an emergency brake lamp using said transducer and signal control circuit.
At present, deceleration alarm signals of all automobiles in the world are produced artificially by the driver""s brake action. Since it is impossible to identify whether normal deceleration or emergency brake signals are indicated by the tail lamps, an accident of vehicle striking from behind is extremely liable to occur, or even a chain of vehicle striking accidents are caused.
In general cases, drivers do not activate emergency brakes purposelessly unless they are at a critical moment or in a last resort. However, unexpected events, particularly mechanical troubles, such as tire sudden explosion, engine rotating section damage and blocking etc., involuntarily occur to drivers. Since such events are not caused artificially, emergency breaking down occurs without starting the brake tail lamps, and likely causes accidents of vehicle striking from behind. Particularly for expressways, once accidents of vehicle striking from behind occur due to unexpected events, the drivers must be injured, suffer shock, or even be killed without issuing accident signals. At this time, if the other drivers following do not attentively focus on driving or there is a poor visibility, further striking accidents would be resulted, or even similar accidents cyclically occur like chain actions.
On Nov. 29, 1991, a chain of serious vehicle striking accidents occurred in California, US, 17 people were killed and 157 injured. On Nov. 6, 1990, many vehicles collided in Holland, 10 people were killed and dozens injured. On Feb. 27, 1991, more than 100 vehicles collided in France, 4 people were killed, and 20 injured and 12 seriously injured. And also in France, above 140 vehicles had collided before, and heavy casualties suffered. On Nov. 31, 1991, about 80 vehicles collided in California, US, 12 people were killed and many injured. And also in California, US, three accidents occurred on Jan. 15, 1994, in which above 60 vehicles collided, 2 people were killed, and above 50 injured. On Feb. 27, 1991, above 100 vehicles collided in Belgium, 23 people were injured and 2 killed. On Feb. 26, 1998, above 140 vehicles collided on Beinjing-Tianxin-Tangshan expressway in China, and traffic was interrupted seriously. On Mar. 10, 1998, 98 vehicles collided on expressway No. 31 in the North of France, 53 people were injured, and 8 seriously injured. In addition, serious vehicle accidents have occurred also in following countries: Italy, Britain, former Soviet Union, Japan, Germany, and nearly all developed or developing countries. Among them, Italy""s most serious accident occurred on Feb. 10, 1993, in which several hundreds vehicles collided, 8 people were killed, the injured and seriously injured were up to 107, serious economic losses were caused, and traffic was blocked for a long time. On the day before, also in Italy, a similar serious event occurred, in which 5 people were killed, and above 100 injured. In China, only in Henan Province, 13317 road traffic accidents occurred in 1997, and 3513 people were killed, which means that every day 37 accidents would occur, 10 people were killed, and 28 injured, among them the accidents of vehicle striking from behind occupying a considerable proportion, published by xe2x80x9cDa He (great river) Dailyxe2x80x9d, on Mar. 13, 1998.
It is illustrated from above instances and references that whether expressways or roads, heavy or light accidents of vehicle striking from behind occur sometimes, less as two or three vehicles, more as several hundreds vehicles.
Such serious results are caused by following reasons, the first reason is: the following drivers are warned only by artificially manipulating the brake tail lamps, which can not satisfy the need of modern vehicle traveling, but the actual effects of such brake tail lamps are over-believed.
Second, such brake tail lamps can not tell normal deceleration from emergency brake, and the following drivers would realize the risks too late.
Third, the warning effects of such brake tail lamps are not ideal, particularly when there is a poor visibility or the driver do not attentively focus on driving; and measures can not taken in time even finding the risk quickly.
Therefore, governments have stipulated that for any breaking down vehicles on the way, a warning or sign board must be set about one hundred meter away from their parking site so as to prevent a serious accident from occurring. However, such action needs a long preparing and carrying out process. It is obvious that there is no time to respond the accident on a heavy traffic expressway, and in this case, following collision would occur in several seconds or dozens of seconds.
Therefore, in Japan, a safe airbag is designed for and added to the steering wheel in cooperation with a safe belt in order to reduce the effects of the vehicle collision on the personnel. But the fact is that only the drivers are protected in a certain degree and that for passenger, particularly for vehicles themselves, there is little significance. Particularly for the earlier collided vehicle and the passenger in it, any effective result and protection are not obtained, and the earlier collided vehicle in turns become another collision target. Thus, it is obvious that such airbag is not the best means to solve the collision problem, and the active method to remedy and control the situation.
In order to solve the vehicle collision problem, scientists in various countries have made attempts to prevent collision by a method in which an active brake is performed with a distance-measuring radar using ultrasonic wave, infrared ray, electromagnetic wave, laser etc. But that method needs expensive instruments mounted (proportional to performance). Furthermore, that method requires to improve and add complex electronic brake devices, and its fatal disadvantage is that traffic accidents are more liable to be caused (a near-distance dodging of flying birds, insects, bats, tree leaves, and falling paper sheets can result in strange emergency braking), and that groundless troubles are brought, or even a chain collisions are caused. Therefore, such envisage and scheme has remained in test stage and no substantial progress is made since the appearance of expressway.
An object of the invention is to provide an emergency-deceleration condition transducer, which can detect vehicle traveling conditions, such as normal traveling, emergency-deceleration, vehicle collision, or even an overturn accident.
Another object of the invention is to provide a signal control circuit which is used cooperatively with the emergency-deceleration transducer.
A further object of the invention is to provide an emergency brake lamp which can automatically detect vehicle traveling conditions and issues effectively a corresponding warning signal when vehicle emergency-deceleration or vehicle collision or even overturn accidents occurs.
In order to achieve the objects described above, the invention provides a emergency-deceleration condition transducer including an insulate house made of an insulate material, in which a close hollow arc groove is formed, said arc groove having an arc surface; some mercury is injected into said arc groove and changing with the vehicle traveling speed, said mercury in the arc groove would freely move backwards and forwards along the arc surface; a plurality of metal contacts are provided on the said arc surface and led outside of said housing as leading out electrodes, the adjacent metal contacts are turned on and off successively when the mercury moves from one end contact to the other.
The length of the arc groove of the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above is about 8-35 times of the length of the mercury along the longitudinal direction of the arc groove, and preferably 13 times.
The metal contacts in the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above are preferably arranged successively along the extension direction of the arc groove, in a single column, in double columns, or alternatively in single column and in double columns, and more preferably in a single column.
The metal contacts in the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above may be also arranged successively in multi-columns along the extension direction of the arc groove.
The number of the metal contacts in the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above, when arranged successively in single column, is selected as 4-36, and preferably as 17.
The arc surface of the arc groove in the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above should be set higher in front and lower in rear to the vehicle traveling direction, and a connection line between the highest metal contact and the lowest contact on the arc surface has a incline angle of 15-60 degree to the vehicle traveling direction, and preferably 40 degree.
Said a plurality of metal contacts, according to their different positions on the arc surface of the arc groove , are divided into a normal traveling detection section, whose corresponding contacts send a on-off signal when the vehicle is normally traveling; an emergency braking detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when emergency braking is applied; and a collision detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when a vehicle collision accident occurs, and are continuously kept on turning on state when an overturn accident occurs.
The collision detection section in the emergency-deceleration condition transducer described above includes at least two contacts, which are continuously kept in a turning on state by the mercury when an overturn accident occurs.
The invention further provides an emergency-deceleration condition signal control circuit including an emergency-deceleration condition transducer provided with: an insulate house made of an insulate material, in which a close hollow arc groove is formed, said arc groove having an arc surface; some mercury is injected into said arc groove and changing with the vehicle traveling speed, said mercury in the arc groove can freely move along the arc surface; a plurality of metal contacts are provided on the said arc surface and led outside of said housing as leading out electrodes, the adjacent metal contacts being turned on and off successively when the mercury moves from one end contact to the other. A plurality of said metal contacts, according to their different positions on the arc surface in the arc groove, are divided into a normal traveling detection section, whose corresponding contacts send a on-off signal when the vehicle is normally traveling; an emergency braking detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when emergency braking is applied; and a collision detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when a vehicle collision accident occurs, and are continuously kept in a turning on state when an overturn accident occurs. The emergency-deceleration condition signal control circuit also includes: a first flip-flop circuit for receiving a pulse output signal from the emergency braking detection section of said transducer, and for being flipped to output the emergency braking condition information when the pulse signal is detected; a second flip-flop circuit for receiving a output signal from the collision detection section of said transducer, and for being flipped to output the collision or overturn information when a collision or overturn signal is detected; a time delay circuit for locking, after the first or second flip-flop circuit is flipped, the state for a predetermined time; and a pulse generating circuit for receiving a output signal from the normal traveling detection section, and for using a pulse signal generated in vehicle traveling to reset the first or second flip-flop circuit delayed.
The invention further provides an emergency-brake lamp including an emergency-deceleration condition transducer provided with: an insulate house made of an insulate material, in which a close hollow arc groove is formed, said arc groove having an arc surface; some mercury is injected into said arc groove and changing with the vehicle traveling speed, said mercury in the arc groove can freely move along the arc surface; a plurality of metal contacts is provided on the said arc surface and led outside of said housing as leading out electrodes, the adjacent metal contacts being turned on and off successively when the mercury moves from one end contact to the other. A plurality of said metal contacts, according to their different positions on the arc surface in the arc groove, are divided into a normal traveling detection section, whose corresponding contacts send a on-off signal when the vehicle is normally traveling; an emergency braking detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when emergency braking is applied; and a collision detection section, whose corresponding contacts are turned on momentarily when a vehicle collision accident occurs, and are continuously kept in a turning on state when an overturn accident occurs. The emergency-brake lamp also includes: a first flip-flop circuit for receiving a pulse output signal from the emergency braking detection section of said transducer, and for being flipped to output the emergency braking condition information when the pulse signal is detected; a second flip-flop circuit for receiving a output signal from the collision detection section of said transducer, and for being flipped to output the collision or overturn information when a collision or overturn signal is detected; a time delay circuit for locking, after the first or second flip-flop circuits is flipped, the state for a predetermined time; a pulse generating circuit for receiving a output signal from the normal traveling detection section, and for using a pulse signal generated in vehicle traveling to reset the first or second flip-flop circuit delayed; and a light source for emitting light to indicate the vehicle being in emergency braking condition or other emergency conditions by taggling said first flip-flop circuit to be flipped when the vehicle is in emergency braking condition or a collision or overturn accident occurs.
Said light source in the emergency brake lamp is preferably a high voltage xenon arc lamp, and includes a low frequency oscillating circuit and an oscillating boost rectifier circuit.
Said emergency brake lamp is preferably includes a radio transmitter-receiver.
Said emergency brake lamp can be mounted on the existing modern vehicles, and can indicate unambiguously the difference between the emergency braking, trouble emergency stopping and collision signals and normal deceleration signal in any environments and conditions, so as to make things convenient for others, protect oneself, and increase the view attraction of the warning signal and effective distance in bad environments. In addition, its starting and turning off are not restricted by the driver""s faults and casualties, and all automatized, so as to effectively prevent the accident of vehicle striking from behind as well as serious collision events from occurring.